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Table of Contents

is meant for players who are new to Hearthstone, and/or who
have not invested much (or any) real money into the game;

is comprised only of cards that are granted to you for free
as a reward for completing the tutorial and leveling a Warlock to level 10;

does not include any Common, Rare, Epic, or Legendary cards.

While there are obvious weaknesses due to the Basic-only limitation, this deck is balanced, and quite strong.
It should allow you to defeat the AI (in both Normal and Expert modes), and it can hold its own against players
using Rare, Epic, and even Legendary cards in Play mode.

In addition to listing the deck, we will also explain why some cards have been included or excluded, how some of the minions in the deck are best played, and what changes you can make to the deck.

Note that to succeed with this deck (as with all decks), you need to make the correct decisions while
playing. For this reason, we advise you to also read these two articles:
Card Advantage and
Why Am I Losing?.

1. About the Author

L0rinda has extensive
experience with Hearthstone. After starting out with Arena and becoming one
of the most prominent streamers in that format, he moved over to
Constructed and now primarily spends his time as a caster for Blizzard,
Starladder, and Dreamhack.

2.1. Mana Curve

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3. Strategy

The Warlock class suffers from having some of the weakest Basic class cards
in the game. Despite this, it is still a reasonable choice for a Basic deck due
to one thing; the Life Tap Hero Power. Card advantage is hugely
important in Hearthstone and the Warlock Hero Power enables you to maintain a
healthy hand size at all times.

The general strategy of this deck is to gain an advantage in the early turns
through efficient minion trading, and then later to consolidate this advantage
by playing a big Frostwolf Warlord or buffing your entire board with a
Stormwind Champion. Because of this it is important to look for
situations where you can remove your opponent's minions whilst keeping your own
alive. For example, hitting a Bloodfen Raptor with your
Gnomish Inventor will keep your Gnomish alive at 1 health, both allowing
that creature to trade for further minions and increasing the potency of your
later cards.

3.1. Card Choices

In this section we will discuss some of the cards that have been chosen, how
to use them effectively, and why they are chosen over other possibilities.
Hopefully this will both help you to succeed with this deck, as well as inform
your own deck building decisions in the future.

Soulfire is one of the few powerful Warlock cards available from the
start. At 1 Mana it can often create a huge tempo swing by removing a creature
your opponent spent 3 or 4 Mana to play and leaving you with most of your own
Mana to follow up that same turn. Try to make this the last thing you play on
your turn, otherwise you risk discarding the other cards you intended to
use.

Murloc Tidehunter and Razorfen Hunter are featured in this
deck for their 2-in-1 minion ability. This synergises well with the later
Frostwolf Warlord and Stormwind Champion. Although you should
play these cards on turn 2 or 3 if they are your only option, it is also worth
considering saving them for Turn 7 or 8, when you can play them in conjunction
with your Frostwolf Warlord to create an immediate buff.

River Crocolisk is favoured in this deck over Bloodfen Raptor
due to the extra point of health. Usually a 3/2 is preferred on turn 2 as it is
capable of trading up into most 3-drops that your opponent can play. However,
with the inclusion of Shattered Sun Cleric and Mortal Coil in the
deck you have ways to do 1 additional damage very favourably.

Hellfire is an important card in games where you fall behind, since
it serves as a reset mechanism to clear the board and let the fight for control
start from scratch again. It goes without saying, but avoid using this card
when you already have a strong board presence of your own.

Dread Infernal is another powerful Warlock card. The 1 damage
Battlecry can be extremely useful to create some favourable trades. However,
you do have some 1 health creatures of your own in the deck, so try to trade
these into your opponent's minions first before dropping the Infernal.

Frostwolf Warlord and Stormwind Champion are your finishers.
Getting one of these creatures down on a board that already features 2 or more
other minions will create big problems for your opponent. Try to avoid playing
them in situations where this is not the case, although if pressed, playing the
Frostwolf Warlord as a 5/5 is fine.

3.2. Card Omissions

Here we will talk about some of the cards that are not included to help you
understand and identify weaker cards, hopefully improving your deck building
skills.

Voidwalker is a fine card, but simply not right for this deck.
Without access to the Expert Set buff cards such as Abusive Sergeant and
Dire Wolf Alpha, Voidwalker simply does not have the power to be a
relevant threat on the board. Imagine the situation where you play Voidwalker
on turn 1 and your opponent answers with a 3/2 on their turn 2. Your Voidwalker
dies for free whilst the opponent's minion survives, giving your opponent easy
card and board advantage.

Corruption is a card that on the surface appears strong, 1 Mana to
kill any minion seems to be a great deal. However the huge problem is the
delayed effect, which means that your opponent has the opportunity to trade the
Corrupted minion off into one of your creatures, essentially making you waste a
card to achieve nothing. As mentioned before, card advantage is hugely
important, so you want to avoid "2-for-1" situations where your opponent's
minion takes 2 cards with it before it dies.

Succubus is another card that can be deceiving. It seems that 4
attack on turn 2 is a very strong play. However, with only 3 health the
Succubus will simply trade with a 3/2, the most common type of 2-drop in the
game. This means you have discarded a card for no benefit.

3.3. Card Swaps

Obviously, as a Basic deck, this list has a lot of room for improvement. As
you progress with the game and gain access to more cards and Arcane Dust, here
are some additions that you may consider.

If you have access to the One Night in Karazhan set, we recommend the
following change: 2 x Silverware Golem can be used to replace 2 x
Razorfen Hunter. It will only synergise with Soulfire, but is
still an upgrade. It will become even better if you can get a Doomguard
to put into your deck.

Other welcome Common additions from the Expert Set are listed below. However
it should be noted that these cards should be added only if you open them from
a pack. Spending dust to improve a Basic only deck is not particularly
efficient, and you should instead try to save dust towards one of our low, or
mid-budget decks.

2x Harvest Golem for 2x Razorfen Hunter. Harvest Golem is the
king of efficiency on Turn 3, often creating a 2-for-1 situation in your
favour.

1x Silver Hand Knight for 1x Gnomish Inventor. As mentioned
previously, the deck is heavy on 4-drops. Replacing one with a 5-drop will
create a smoother curve, while Silver Hand Knight plays nicely into the board
presence strategy. Removing the card draw of Gnomish could be detrimental, but
you can always refill your hand with Life Tap when necessary.

3.4. Improvement Strategy

There are several changes that you can make to the strategy of the deck as
you start to build your collection. If you manage to get hold of
Dire Wolf Alpha, you can try to keep the token minions, and start to play
smaller cards like Voidwalker. If you have access to One Night in
Karazhan, you can play both Silverware Golem and Malchezaar's Imp
if you get Doomguard or Darkshire Librarian. If you have access
to most of these cards, you can check out our Zoo Warlock decks.

4. ChangeLog

+ show all entries- show only 10 entries

12 Jul. 2017: Card Swap section updated to reflect Standard rotation.

18 Jun. 2016: Edited for clarity on card swaps for Standard and Wild.

29 Jun. 2015: Added options for Blackrock Mountain cards to be added to the deck.